When I was studying in Rome after one year I changed my accommodation from one religious
house to another which was only half the distance from the Biblical Institute
where I was studying. In the second religious house my room
was by the side of the street and there was a pizzeria opposite. It closed at about midnight every night
and all the patrons came pouring out on to the street making a great deal of
noise. For the first month it woke
me every night but only for the first month. I became accustomed to the noise and it no longer woke me. You could say I became deaf to the
noise. (A few months afterwards a
room at the other side of the house, the quiet side, became vacant and I moved
in to the quiet room.) When you get
used to noise you almost become deaf to it.

In our Gospel today there is a man who
is deaf and Jesus heals him. Jesus’
ministry fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah in our first reading

…the eyes of the blind shall be
opened,
the ears of the deaf unsealed…(Isa 35:5)

Our modern western world has
become deaf to the words of Jesus, as deaf as the man in the Gospel, but it is
not a physical deafness, it is a spiritual deafness caused by sin. We have become so used to sin that we
take it as normal and we have become deafened and blinded to Jesus and his call
to us.
Pope John Paul II, before he
left
Ireland on October 1st 1979, said in Limerick in prophetic words
that are more and more relevant as the years go by,

“Ireland must choose. You the present generation of Irish
people must decide; your choice must be clear and your decision firm. Let the voice of your forefathers, who
suffered so much to maintain their faith in Christ and thus to preserve Ireland’s
soul, resound today in your ears through the voice of the Pope when he repeats
the words of Christ: “What will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world,
and forfeits his life?” (Matt 16:26) What would it profit Ireland to go the easy way of the world
and suffer the loss of her own soul? Your
country seems in a sense to be living again the temptations of Christ: Ireland
is being asked to prefer the “kingdoms of the world and their splendor” to
the kingdom of God (see Matt 4:8). Satan,
the tempter, the adversary of Christ, will use all his might and all his
deceptions to win Ireland for the way of the world. What a victory he would gain, what a
blow he would inflict on the Body of Christ in the world, if he could seduce
Irish men and women away from Christ. Now
is the time of testing for Ireland. This
generation is once more a generation of decision…”
(Homily
of Pope John Paul II in Limerick, Monday October 1st, 1979)

It does not seem that we are
listening to the words of the Pope. We
are going the way of the world and are becoming deaf to the words of Jesus.

The deaf man in the Gospel was healed
by Jesus, and Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae, writes of Jesus’ ministry in
beautiful words that are so full of meaning for today’s Gospel,

all who suffer because their lives
are in some way “diminished” thus hear from him the “good news” of God’s
concern for them, and they know for certain that their lives too are a gift
carefully guarded in the hands of the Father (§32)

We suffer and are diminished through sin but Jesus
has good news for us, that our lives are a gift carefully guarded in the hands
of our Father. The Pope made the same point to young people in Galway on September
30th 1979,

“How many young people have
already warped their consciences and have substituted the true joy of life with
drugs, sex, alcohol, vandalism and the empty pursuit of mere material
possessions. Something else is
needed: something that you will find only in Christ, for he alone is the measure
and the scale that you must use to evaluate your own life. In Christ you will discover the true
greatness of your own humanity; he will make you understand your own dignity as
human beings “created to the image and likeness of God” (Gen 1:26). Christ has the answers to your questions
and the key to history; he has the power to uplift hearts. He keeps calling you, he keeps inviting
you, he who is the “the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).”
(Homily
in Galway, Sunday September 30th 1979)

Let us answer the call of
Jesus, the way and the truth and the life. May our eyes become opened to Jesus and our ears unsealed to his good
news. May we who suffer because our lives are diminished through sin hear the
good news of God’s concern for us and know for certain that our lives are a
gift carefully guarded in the hands of our Father.